Mac Pro 08 Post Processing options / gfx card upgrade

[jc]

Hi Guys, first off raw video quality ( from my MK2 ) is amazing!

I have a Mac Pro, specifically the 08 "3,1" model.. this is a very popular machine around here i would imagine.
It has the included gfx card : ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB

After Effects :
I first tried rendering a 40 second clip in After Effects, bringing in the DNG sequence, and the controls were exactly what i was looking for, very easy to get highlight recovery, shadow detail, white balance & noise reduction. However when choosing a custom ProRes export it was saying 1 hour 15 mins! This is acceptable .. i can leave it over night, but not ideal

Cineform Raw :
Next option was Cineform Raw converted in a windows 8 vm.. conversion was super fast, and i can use the files "As Is" on my mac with the codecs installed but as far as i can tell i need Cineform Studio Professional at a cost of $300 to grade the footage, and with that the noise performance is not great

Ginger HDR : works fine & can directly play back the files in After Effects, but cant see much in the way of grading options and not affordable

Raw2dng : from http://bitbucket.org/a_d_/magic-lantern/downloads/5D2_OSX_raw2dng_ProRes.zip .. gives me a 10 bit ProRes file.. about 15 mins for 40 seconds.. not too bad tho some of the raw quality / flexibility is lost

Davinci Resolve :
This looks to be a great, affordable, and fast option : the only issue is that my mac pro 08's gfx card does not support OpenCL, so it simply wont run.
So my main questions are A) should i upgrade my gfx card and B) what too
As far as i can tell the performance on an 08 mac pro is not amazing, the processors are very fast & you can fit a very very fast gfx card but the bus between the two is quite slow so for lots and lots of grading it's slower than expected, but just for a simple grade and export it should be quick enough. Also it prefers nvidia cards that have CUDA over just OpenCL ( for example, no noise reduction in open CL ) I also want a card thats quiet, eps at idle, and quite affordable. The official gfx card updates from apple are years out of date & very expensive, you can however with later versions of OS X ( eg 10.8.3 and above ) fit a number of PC gfx cards all which work just fine, except you wont see a boot screen; the logging screen / your desktop with auto login are the first things to show.

So shall i : A) wait for some perfect workflow where its super fast, with the ease and quality of ACR in After Effects, but is mega fast with out needing a new gfx card, or buy a new card for my pro & :
B ) if i buy a card what one, a 2nd hand one off ebay or a a new one? Nvidia or ATI/AMD? i dont need anything super fast, just quiet, affordable & does the job quite well.

J

[AnotherDave]

I had the exact same issue.

Just bite the bullet and get the ATI 5770 upgrade from Apple.  It's $250 but my system is running a lot better with it all around.

Resolve works great, and it is fast!  I'm outputting at around 18fps (depending on what I do to the clip).  It made the possibility of RAW on my system a lot more possible.

Though, now I'm upgrading again to USB 3.0 because my fastest option for downloading the CF media was 480mbps USB 2.0 - making the whole process of converting .RAW files to ProRes 422 HQ take a total of 1:15;00 (26-29mins to download).  I'm hoping USB 3.0 will cut that DL time to 10-15mins.

[rockfallfilms]

I have a Mac Pro early 2008 8 core 3.0ghz. I put a GTX 560Ti 448 in it and I get 18-25fps in Resolve. AE renders pretty quickly too. Resolve gives me a GPU not supported warning but still works fine. You could also put a GTX 570 in it.

[jc]

Hi guys.. thanks for the reply! i thought that this might be a popular topic.. i think apple sold lots & lots of the 3,1 mac pro!

>Resolve works great, and it is fast!  I'm outputting at around 18fps (depending on what I do to the clip).  It made the possibility of RAW on my system a lot more possible.

Great thats exactly what im looking for, just a basic grade to get my white balance set, highlights recovered and shadow detail brought out, and all in a few mins per min.. not into the hours :-)

>Though, now I'm upgrading again to USB 3.0 because my fastest option for downloading the CF media was 480mbps USB 2.0 - making the whole process of converting .RAW files to ProRes 422 HQ take a total of 1:15;00 (26-29mins to download).  I'm hoping USB 3.0 will cut that DL time to 10-15mins.
Thats a great point.. which pci usb 3.0 card are you looking at then? maybe this should be a general "Upgrade your Mac Pro for RAW Processing" thread! Also have you considered Firewire 800 card readers ? like this one http://www.robgalbraith.com/content_paged037.html?cid=7-11673-12298

> I have a Mac Pro early 2008 8 core 3.0ghz. I put a GTX 560Ti 448 in it and I get 18-25fps in Resolve. AE renders pretty quickly too. Resolve gives me a GPU not supported warning but still works fine. You could also put a GTX 570 in it.
Great .. which make of GTX 560Ti do you have ? and does the machine work well with it in? eg any issues & do many other apps benefit from the card? also is it quiet, eg the same as the stock card? .. i code on my machine regularly and don't want an air-con unit sound all day :-) also did you remove the existing card or leave that in too?
I was thinking of maybe a GTX 550 .. its half the price and maybe still far more than i need .. are there any good low price / power consumption last gen cards i can get on ebay that work well for say half the price of the GTX 550? or you think not?

Many Thanks. J

[jc]

Also was also thinking of a GTX 650 ... tho seems roughly the same price as the GTX 550 .. and would need special power cables for these pc cards?

[budafilms]

Try the GTX 650 Ti OC

NOT the others 650.

I had the ATI 6850 and this model for da vinci and FINAL X duplicate my machine.

It´s very cheap.

[jc]

Try the GTX 650 Ti OC
NOT the others 650.

ok great il make sure to look out for a TI model then.. which make do you recommend?

also i came across this.. any thoughts ?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-zotac-gt-640-zone-edition-28nm-1600mhz-gddr3-gpu-900mhz-384-cores-mini-hdmi-2x-dl-dvi-passive-co
It's passively cooled, which looks interesting!

[xNiNELiVES]

Why don't you get a 680 Mac edition.

[jc]

Why don't you get a 680 Mac edition.

Hi xNiNELiVES, thanks for your reply:-) well it's about 5x more than I wanted to spend, is a lot more than I need and very big & maybe not that quiet either

Does anybody have an opinion on that passive card? Looks very appealing to my limited knowledge. James